Sadly, some Republicans are caving to the pressure brought on by these shame tactics. For example, on May 3, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger officially “withdrew his support of a plan to expand oil drilling off the California coast.” When pressed for a reason for doing so, Schwarzenegger said: “You turn on the television and see this enormous disaster, you say to yourself, ‘Why would we want to take on that kind of risk?”‘

Why do we take the risk? We do so because fossil fuels are the engine of our economy and without them, America finds herself in a self-administered chokehold.

Perhaps Schwarzenegger could learn a bit from Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell, who’s moving forward with plans to drill off Virginia’s shores even as the Sierra Club and others are using the language of a crisis to stop him. In what has sadly become a novel approach in today’s effeminized political climate, McDonnell explained that “he does not want to postpone drilling [because of BP’s spill] but to learn from the accident” so as not to repeat it.

I forgot to mention that George Soros’ not-so-respectable bunch, MoveOn.org, is side by side with the Sierra Club and Oceana North America in this attempt to end offshore drilling. In no uncertain terms, MoveOn has launched “an ad campaign calling on President Obama to reinstate the ban on new offshore drilling.”

Now just in case these groups fail to secure a ban on offshore drilling, men like John Podesta and Joseph Romm are calling for more regulation of offshore oil platforms and more taxes on oil companies. That’s right, even though this spill was obviously the result of an explosion that took place on a BP platform, Podesta and Romm suggest all oil companies — Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, etc. – be punished along with BP.

So there are two solutions to this crisis according to the liberal mind. The first is to ban offshore drilling de jure via a presidential order or legislative action. If they fail there, the second solution is to ban offshore drilling de facto by placing so many taxes, restrictions, and regulations on the oil companies that it becomes unprofitable to construct platforms from which to drill.

Either way, we as consumers lose because neither solution is really aimed at anything other than driving the price of gasoline through the roof, and forcing us out of our SUVs and pickup trucks once and for all.

The cessation of offshore drilling would create an intense shortfall of petroleum and its byproducts for Americans. The outcry to “do something!” would be swift and deafening. In the absence of further oil exploration and extraction, the “something” would necessarily involve rationing…and a new power would be abroad in the land.

Rationing involves decisions about priorities: What industries that require petroleum are critical to the nation? What sectors of commerce should be permitted to expend our precious fuel supplies? What can we allow private citizens to have — and which private citizens, by occupation, location, and personal status, matter most? Rationing boards would sit on these questions; their decisions would be unreviewable, de facto if not de jure.

There is no power so great as the power to deny others their vital necessities. Historically, such power has most often been exercised through the control of a water supply: were you to tick off the regional water monopolist, you would die of thirst. Farmers, especially, had to do whatever the water monopolist demanded. If our knowledge of pre-classical history is reliable, water monopolies were sturdier and more powerful than any other sort of hegemony.

Today’s most vital need is energy. An energy monopolist would possess power undreamed of by all the emperors that have ever reigned.

Left-liberals, environmentalists, warmistas and the rest aspire to be energy monopolists. They yearn for the power to dictate the terms of human life and activity — all human life and activity — and political control over access to energy would put it into their hands.

The road to an energy monopoly must pass over the gorge of rationing, which cannot be bridged until the discovery and exploitation of new energy sources has been choked off by the State.

It looks like BP may have skipped a step that could have prevented this blow out. They may have left out a plug before removing the mud.

The one way this crisis won’t go to waste is the technology that will have to be used to stop it whether it be proving that the technology works or developing new technology that will. Once they succeed(and they will)the technology can be in place to minimize the impact of any future blowouts.

Absolutely! One spill SHOULD shut down offshore drilling until we’ve conducted studies to ensure that offshore drilling is safe, is the only alternative, and that this doesn’t happen again! The same way we did with abortion when so many botched abortions -

Has it occurred to anyone that left-wing environmentalists aren’t the only ones who want to see the US stop drilling? If I were the king of Saudi Arabia, I’d be handing out millions to Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, and making sure this crisis doesn’t go to waste.

Attacking the oil industry along with the other energy providers, coal, nukes, as some sort of New Age anti-Gaia cause makes one wonder if the Eco-topians are ready to return to the 7th century and the more simple earth friendly life. Perhaps they have not thought about how the unplugging of the energy sector would affect their lives. What would their world be if they won their great cause?
Methinks that their outrage is more of The Shakedown, to extort money and power from the large energy corporations under the preaching guise of harmony with the planet. How would they live without their cellphones, plastics, and urban enviroment (artificial caves) without the outside resources supporting their lifestyles and causes? Are they ready to return to the fields and forests to become Avatars?

For the most part, it’s everyone else they want to return to the 7th century. Think of Al Gore’s many mansions with heated swimming pools, while he lectures others on the virtue of cutting back on energy useage.

One nuclear accident has shut down new plants for the last 40 years….at least in the U.S. Of course our economic competitors continued on. I’m guessing we’ll see the same thing. We’ll give up on any new offshore work, and gradually strangle that which exists, and the rest of the world will happily exploit the resources in our back yard.

johnt – excellent post. In their minds, everything should leads to our misery and you can be sure that this BP spill is going to be miserable on us at the pump when it doesn’t even have to be that way.

One environmentalist in particular, the Sierra Club’s Michael Brune, has grown so hysterical that he’s decided to speak for everyone by declaring: “Americans are horrified.” And although “almost 40 years have passed [without] an incident” of this kind, Brune is certain the BP explosion proves “there is no safe way to drill for oil in oceans.”

Yeah!

Oh sure!

These same cabbage head, radical environmentalist,
shut down Nuclear Power for the last 40 years.

The oil companies laughed at these idiots all the way to the Wall Street Gold Mines.

(Our Green) president Barack Obama announced a plan to expand oil drilling off US coasts, drawing protests from green groups but charges by Republicans it did not go far enough.

Bingo. The real agenda is to create an energy shortage. And who will step in to make sure that energy will be allocated in a “fair” manner? The government of course. This will give them the power to pick the losers and the winners, which is the power that they have always craved.

The last time we had a spill this bad was 21 years ago, when the Exxon Valdez ran aground. One spill this size every twenty years or so is acceptable in order to obtain the fuel we need. Until people can get that logic through their heads, I suggest we point out how filled with poison all the lefty ideas are. I mean that quite literally- mercury in the compact florescent light bulbs, rare earth elements in the solar panels (90% of which come from China, by the way), that crazy idea about not burning off aromatic hydrocarbons (benzene and its derivatives, which are carcinogenic) because doing so would produce CO2.

Exxon Valdez would not have happened had the eco-warriers not blocked a pipeline through Canada.
There’s every chance that this spill would not have happened had the eco-warriers not made it impossible to drill in shallower waters in much of the Gulf, Atlantic, and Pacific coasts.

Speaking of the Exxon Valdez, no one called for the end of offshore shipping after that disaster. They may have made comments on drunken captains. Meanwhile the greater eco-disaster is spouting volcanic ash over Europe, costing more, and no class action lawyers have come forward.

MarkTheGreat – your post is actually so obviously devoid of reality that I wonder if you’re serious. But just in case you are I want to counter you by simply saying the “greedy” oil companies turn less a percentage of profit off a gallon of gas through the refining process than the federal government does through taxation on that gallon. We’ve got to be honest about who’s driving the price up MarkTheGreat – and to honest it ain’t Exxon.

The posture of the Obama administration is 100% wrong. Every accident, oil spill or otherwise, which takes place will be used to further a leftist agenda. Our president is literally at war with this country.

Great article AWR. We are back to the point we reached under Clinton, where every shooting was impetus for more gun control, except now it’s not guns (yet), but energy, finances, and automobiles. Are liberty is in danger at every turn thanks to the current administration.

The attacks on oil companies are senseless, as they are so central to our survival that an attack on them is literally an attack on ourselves. Obama’s populist approach to criticizing capitalizing may be paying dividends with the hard left, but it’s about to cost us greatly at the pump.

The left has used every resource it could to bring down America. From litigation to taxation to unionization to regulation-it has all been done in the effort to destroy America. This eco thing is just the latest and perhaps best.

The eco-left and their willing sycophants in the MSM and enablers in the Dem party will use the spill to further strangle America.

Those who are oppossed to off shore drilling will never stop using products that are garnered from it and to their shame many of those who speak the loudest against it are the front of the line when it comes to consumption. When was the last time anyone saw Al Gore on a bicycle rather than driving his suv, or sailing across the ocean rather than flying in a petro guzzling jet?

Yeah. I mean we have so many other Gulfs of Mexico. And, really, Louisiana has so many other thriving industries outside of fishing. What’s one Gulf of Mexico compared to the thousands of Gulfs of Mexico all over our great land?

The American public has a short attention span and a hideous lack of forward, big-picture thinking. They look at a currently unfolding situation and scream like children, because they never considered the possibility. (Moralistic sidebar: This is why they can’t keep a marriage going. One bump in the road and they flee. The point of the marriage vow is to mentally prepare us. It’s not “supertitious tradition.” We need a “civilization vow,” to keep us on the forward track, even when things get messy.)

It all reminds me of people screaming “Stop exploring space!” after seven astronauts died in the Callenger explosion. I was doing the ol’ incredulous blink and asking, “Wait.. you’re serious?” Seven deaths and we need to stay home? That’s how easily some Americans are turned aside.

Now here we are again: a disaster and that’s it. “Stop!” What utter fools.

No substance in history has provided more for humanity than oil has. If it is indeed limited, we should squeeze every last drop of that “civilization juice” out of the Earth even while we move onto other substances.

A 2nd thought: Why are we letting spilled oil go to waste? Why aren’t we set up to skim it up off the water and still take it to the refinery? I’m pretty damned sure we can separate it from seawater as easily as we separate it from rock.

Fine, we can agree to stop drilling in the ocean only if all land based opportunities are made available immediately. These stupid Leftists are going to strangle our economy and our country. According to the Congressional Research Service we, the USA, have more fossil fuel reserves than any other nation on the planet. We cold be net exporters of energy if only we could get rid of the anti-capitalist, neo-Marxists environmentalists. They are solely responsible for inexcusable dependence on foreign oil. They alone are responsible for the death of our nuclear power industry and the resulting growth in coal power plants and coal mining. They are going to be responsible for high energy prices and a declining standard of living. We MUST fight these people by defeating ALL Democrats at ALL levels and stripping environmental groups of standing before the courts.